Downsizing

Donvale, Melbourne. 23C, cloudy, heavy rain. Flooding apparently, but not near us.

Today Michael and I looked at a calendar and realised that we have exactly 2 free weekends to sell everything we own before we sail Bass Voyager back to Melbourne. This is because we have made the CRAZY decision to clear out of our rental property before we fly to Adelaide on 12 March to pick up our girl, BV. This will save us $1500 in rent, but ra-heelly puts the pressure on. Next few weeks will (all things going as planned...) manifest as follows:

1. long weekend 10 - 14 Feb: we are in Adelaide fitting the boat with electronics including an autopilot (essential for long-distance) and a GPS, plus a few other essential maintenance tasks. Here's hoping the weather beats last week's 43C temperatures. Surely tested the livability of our new abode!!
2. following 2 weekends: garage sales/cleaning up/ tip trips. last chance to rid ourselves of shackles, chattels, miscellaneous etc.
3. weekend 5 March: drive to ADL with the pets (2 dogs + 2 cats + 750kms + 8 hours each way over 2 days = hell on earth!)
4. following weekend 12 March: fly to ADL and get the boat prepped and ready to sail home. We have put aside 12 days to get everything organised and wait for the perfect weather window to bring her home. Surely that will be enough. Surely! :-/

We spent our Saturday putting stuff on Ebay and planning for the next few weeks.

Currently for sale are:

• dining table and chairs
• 2 stereo systems
• lounge
• single bed
• queen bed
• playstation
• x-box
• 47 inch HDTV
• assorted games
• pot-belly stove
• etc....

Tomorrow we will add anything else we can do without for the next 6 weeks.

We've already managed to sell:

• treadmill
• stacks of PlayStation gear

So as mentioned, next weekend we fly to Adelaide to spend four days on Bass Voyager and get all the "absolutely essential" work done before we set sail back to Victoria. That means:

• install autopilot (CPT)
• install GPS (Raymarine A50D)
• install Raymarine wind instruments (ST40)
• fix sail bag (thanks to Michael's Opa)
• re-rig lazy-jacks (one of which has snapped, although we'll probably just replace both. better safe than... well you know...)
• service tender's outboard engine (thank god for mechanic husbands: I would recommend them to anyone.)
• replace starboard nav light and...
• oh yeah, and learn how to sail our new boat.... ha!

Seriously though, we hope to have the time (and weather) to take a test sail from Adelaide over to the Port Vincent Marina and back.

A big week or two ahead!!